Film Review: Winterlude

On Wednesday evening, Jenny and I ventured to the Charles Theatre to take in our first world-premiere of a film. The movie, Winterlude, was a film that featured the photographic expertise, and acting talents, of a friend of mine from high school, Brian Mackey.

The movie is a student filmmaker who is producing a film about relationships, using a real couple in the lead roles as a fictional couple. It's a film within-a-film in some ways, but that doesn't distract from a coherent storyline.

Is it a good film? Keeping in mind the limited budget ($35K) and acting pool - it starred the directors, photographers, etc. - I think it was a well-conceived idea that was, more-often-than-not, well-executed. The plot was clever, but not clever in the bad way that some plots are, trying too hard to come up with a twist and in the process ruining an otherwise good effort. The film moved along very well, aside from the beach scenes near the end, which seemed painfully drawn-out - probably due to too many time-lapses of clouds drifting across the sky (personally, one puffy cloud time-lapse sequence is usually enough for me). The acting performances, while very solid overall, were sometimes a bit too understated, especially by the male lead. That being said, I can't recall any over-acting or melodrama, which is excellent coming from a young cast that I assume doesn't have a lot of experience with film acting.

Most importantly though, the film was a professional-quality effort. Putting aside the subject matter, I wasn't reminded throughout the movie that this was a first-time feature film by people not too far removed from film school. OK, that's not entirely true; I found that the sound, heavy on background noises, was distracting in many indoor scenes. Yes, I know refrigerators cycle on and off in real life, but I don't feel like I need to hear the compressor turn on in a movie - I can listen to my refrigerator from the comfort of my home.

On the whole, the camera work, the acting, the editing, were all of sufficient quality that I would guess that Chlorofilm, the production company, shouldn't have too much trouble getting funding for future projects (No Mack, that's not an offer to invest in your next film - unless, of course there's a lot of gratuitous nudity, then I'll think about it). Overall, a solid film that the people at Chlorofilm should be proud of: I wish them luck in their future celluloid endeavors.

Finally, I feel obligated to throw in some sensational quotes to include in newspaper ads for wide release:

• "Winterlude is everything an independent film should be. Remember the name: Chlorofilm!"
• "Finally, a Baltimore-based movie that doesn't have a body-count!"
• "Brian Mackey hijacks every scene he's in and won't give them back!"